David Waters: Children in peril join gangs that put children in peril

April 10, 2014 — Della J. Blair, a school crossing guard for 45 years, helps kids cross over Kansas Street on Thursday afternoon in the Riverview neighborhood that is known as a gang ‘war zone’.
(Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal)

Brad Vest/TheCommercial Appeal

April 10, 2014 — A sign was stuck in the large fence surrounding the Lyons Ridge Apartment complex near Carver High School in the Riverview neighborhood that is known as a gang ‘war zone’.
(Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal)

Brad Vest/TheCommercial Appeal

April 10, 2014 — A sidewalk square along Kansas Street in the Riverview neighborhood that is known as a gang ‘war zone’.
(Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal)

Brad Vest/TheCommercial Appeal

April 10, 2014 — Reverend James Kendrick from Oak Grove Baptist Church stands in an empty lot where apartments once stood at the corner of Kansas Street and West Person Ave, the lot is the future site of the Family Development and Wellness Center in the Riverview neighborhood. Riverview is known as a gang ‘war zone’, “It’s really bad,” Kendrick said about the neighborhood. “We have to really work to help these neighbors survive”.
(Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal)

Brad Vest/TheCommercial Appeal

(Editor's note: The Commercial Appeal's David Waters writes a series of occasional columns under the banner "Children in Peril," about the imminent danger faced by too many children in the Memphis area. In February, alone, Memphis-area children were the victims of stray bullets, abusive parents and preventable car accidents. Waters, a metro columnist who has covered urban issues, families and children through the years, will write about people and organizations trying to change the approach to this troubling issue by shifting the conversation to prevention and child development from crime and punishment.)

On a good day in Riverside, a boarded-up, ganged-up neighborhood south of Downtown Memphis, no one hears a gunshot. On a great day, no one gets shot.

Lately, there have been a lot of good and great days in this 4.6-square-mile area that last fall was declared, at the request of the Multi-Agency Gang Unit, a court-ordered "Safety Zone."

"I haven't heard a single gunshot during the day since the injunction," said Rev. James Kendrick, pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church, next to Riverview Elementary, since 1985.

"And I don't know anyone who's been shot. It's quieter than it has been in years."

The injunction, issued by Judge Larry Potter against Riverside's violent Rollin 90's gang, is the latest law-enforcement effort to regain control of what has become the city's most lawless, perilous and gang-infested neighborhood.

But Kendrick and others know it's just the first step in reclaiming Riverside, which over the past 30 years has deteriorated from a troubled place to a treacherous one.

When it comes to explaining why so many Memphis children live in peril, the growth of drug-dealing gangs in neighborhoods like Riverside is both cause and effect.

Gangs fill a void created by broken and dysfunctional families facing enormous personal, economic, and social obstacles.

It takes a gang to destroy a village, but it takes a healthy, functioning, nurturing family to destroy a gang.

That point was made clear to Kendrick not long ago when he met a gang member on a street corner near the church.

The young man said he remembered being part of Kendrick's Boys of Character mentoring program at Riverview Elementary in the 1990s.

Twice a week, Kendrick and other men from Oak Grove Baptist Church spent time with elementary-age boys.

"He said, ‘You know, you really helped us. You really did a lot of good,'" said Kendrick, Oak Grove's pastor since 1985. "'But,' he said, ‘The problem was that we still had to go home every day.'"

Kendrick said that conversation completely shifting his thinking about how to help children who live in perilous neighborhoods.

"It's not enough to help the children who come to us in the schools or the churches or summer programs," Kendrick said. "We have to get into those homes. There are so many dysfunctional families. We've got a mess on our hands."

In no Memphis neighborhood is the mess more evident than Riverside — the area south of South Parkway, north of Mallory, west of Kansas and east of Martin Luther King Riverside Park.

Twenty years ago, my colleague, Marc Perrusquia, and I wrote a series of stories about gangs in Memphis. We spent some time in Riverside, talking to residents, gang members, patrol officers and others about the neighborhood's growing gang problem.

Police said they first noticed gang activity in Memphis in the early 1980s when they found that the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples had arrived in Riverside.

Craig Petties, the notorious drug lord who was given nine life sentences last year, grew up in Riverside. He began selling drugs there as a teenager in the late 1980s and became a Gangster Disciple leader.

‘'Every police officer on the street knew we've had gangs here for 10 or 12 years,'' the late Maj. Rufus Gates, head of the Organized Crime Unit of the Memphis Police Department, told us in 1994.

‘'At that point in time, the problem could have been dealt with 100 percent by the Police Department, by a strong police effort. But now it's way beyond the scope of the Police Department or law enforcement in general in Shelby County.''

Riverside was an easy target for gangs. It was already crumbling.

In 1990, one in four families had both parents at home. More than half were headed by single females. Median household income was about $13,000. Four in 10 families with children lived in poverty.

In the past two decades, many who had the wherewithal to get out did. Riverside's population has dropped by more than a third, from 6,500 in 1990 to 3,900 today.

There are 300 fewer housing units now, but twice as many vacant ones. Nearly half of all families in Riverside now live below the federal poverty line.

"Riverside was a war zone," said Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich, whose office is working with city, county and federal officials to enforce the injunction.

"The gangs ruled the streets by fear and intimidation. Children were afraid to go out. Residents were afraid to call the police. Now, they feel safer and more empowered."

In a 10-month period before the injunction, residents made some 1,200 calls to police for help, including at least one shooting call per day.

In the six months since the injunction declared Riverside a "Safety Zone," there have been only a handful of shots-fired calls.

Before the injunction, Riverside was an open-air drug market. Gang members and drug dealers were recruiting children, intimidating residents, shooting at each other with relative impunity.

Now, children are playing outside again. They don't have to walk through gangs to get to school. Residents say they feel safer. Calls to police are up, but violent crimes and property crimes are down.

Riverside is safer than it was a year ago, but far from a stable, secure and nurturing environment for children.

"The family foundation has been destroyed," Kendrick said. "These young men don't know how to be fathers. These young women don't know how to be mothers. Many of them are crying out for help. They just don't know how to connect.

"We can't rebuild the community until we rebuild the family. And we can't underestimate what that will take."

What will that take?

Certainly, safer streets, better schools and more living-wage jobs are vital parts of the equation.

But children still have to go home.

Over the past six weeks, I've written about children in peril from abuse and neglect, crime and violence, guns and gangs.

In the coming months, I'll explore ways that schools, churches, health care agencies, law enforcement agencies and nonprofit organizations are trying to help children where they live.